Hermione in Wonderland
by Salome Orr
Summary: response to the Hermione in Wonderland challenge on WIKTT. R&R for Dinah's sake
1. Prologue: Down the Rabbit Hole

Disclaimer- The credit belongs to Rowling and Carroll, not I.

Author Note- This is in response to the WIKTT challenge, "Hermione in Wonderland." With respect I wanted to keep the storyline similar to that of the actual "Alice in Wonderland" but with changes that suited Hermione's personality.

**PROLOGUE: DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE**

"Hermione!" It never ceased to amaze her how well Ron could twist her name into a high-pitched whine. Pince gave them a dubious look from across the room. "Is this really necessary?"

"Ron, if you aren't prepared to get serious about your future, why did you ask me to help you study in the first place?" She hissed.

"Come to think of it, I can't really remember now." He lowered his head onto the library table, amid the messy assortment of parchment, books, and what looked to be day-old chocolate frog sandwiched between a Charms essay and doodles from History of Magic. Hermione's mouth curled in disgust. _Honestly._ She looked at the clock; they had only been "studying" for an hour. The clock seemed to tick more loudly than normal and was slowly driving her mad. She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples, willing her mind into clarity. Completely absorbed in her thoughts, she started at the loud sound of some books falling to the floor.

"I'm late!" She heard someone squeak. She looked up to see Neville running frantically about the library, zigzagging back to the entrance. She stood up.

"Late for what?"

"I'm late! I'm late! Move." He muttered indignantly. Hermione noted the odd manner in which he twitched his nose, as he shoved past her. She looked back at Ron's still form. _Of all the times he chooses to fall a sleep, bugger it. _

"Wait, Neville, maybe I can help." She followed after him. He was moving awfully fast.

"No time, I'm late!" Something white protruded from the back of his robes. _How queer. _Hermione tailed after him. Neville's movements through the corridors were highly erratic, and if Hermione didn't know any better, completely random. She nearly missed him slip into Myrtle's bathroom. _What in Merlin's name was he doing in there? _She slowed her pace and crept in. She was just in time to glimpse Neville jumping into an exposed hole next to one of the sinks. It wasn't the fact that Neville had somehow penetrated the Chamber of Secrets that struck her first, but the utterly, strange transformation that had taken over him. Ridiculous looking white rabbit ears had sprouted from his head, and his hands had morphed into large white paws. Albeit, opposable thumbs never made the difference in his Potions abilities, as he was prone to dropping things as if he never had them to begin with. She thought about running back and getting Harry and Ron. Neville turning into a rabbit and opening the Chamber of Secrets wasn't something they should miss. She smiled smugly then. It was true, she'd always felt a little disappointed not to have been part of that adventure. After all, the scant page on the Chamber of Secrets in Hogwarts a History did little to quell her curiosity. What is better than a first-hand account? No, this was to be _her _adventure. She knew the boys would be jealous, when she told them about it. Besides, it was only Neville down there, no basilisks to scare her now. With one last look around the bathroom for the questionably absent Myrtle, she would have made herself heard by now; Hermione went down the "proverbial rabbit hole."

A/N- Tis only the prologue. I wanted to have it in before the challenge is closed. I'm unbetaed so please be patient. The next chapter soon.


	2. What a curious feeling!

A/N- some parts of the plot may seem a little illogical, such as motives and thoughts. I've tried to keep Hermione canon but remember this is Wonderland. In the original story by Lewis Carroll, Alice has a lot of trouble remembering lessons and rhymes she was taught in the real world while in Wonderland, I wanted to maintain that element.

**CHAPTER 1: What a curious feeling!**

Hermione had always hated the sensation of falling. It was the reason she didn't ride a broom. Ten minutes of falling didn't make her like it anymore. Didn't Harry say this was a shorter fall? It was more like a slide, he said. _She thought. _Her memory felt fuzzy. In fact, a lot of things felt fuzzy. Quick! She forced herself. _What were the ten uses of dragon blood? _Come to think of it, she couldn't understand why dragon blood was useful at all. It smelt dreadful. She thought of Snape leaning over her cauldrons, scanning them for some miniscule imperfection that he could exploit. He was the only teacher that hated her. Then again, as far as she knew, he hated everyone. Why was she even thinking of him in the first place?

"This isn't good at all!" She huffed out loud. All her knowledge felt so reversed, and she was still falling. Her stomach would come out her throat at this rate. "I wonder if they've noticed I'm gone." Hermione had an unsettling suspicion that they hadn't. The unsettling suspicion was quickly turning into a terrifying conclusion when she suddenly landed on a large pile of dusty books.

"Oomph." She winced where the pokey parts of the spines stuck into her. She patted away the dust and saw Neville's fading form some distance ahead. She jumped up and pursued him down a dimly lit hallway. _Funny, this doesn't look like a sewer._ The hall stretched on until she was halted abruptly. Dead end, and Neville was nowhere in sight. _Damn. _She hadn't seen any other hallways he could disappear into, so where could he have gone. She spotted a small table pushed against the walls near a curtain in the corner of the dead end. A little black bottle was placed in the center of the table. She picked it up and examined the tag tied around the neck. DRINK ME. "What sort of joke is this?" She thought aloud. Hermione looked around the stifling hallway for a hidden watcher. She uncorked the bottle and took an experimental sip. She admonished herself for being risky and stupid. What if she had just ingested poison? Actually, poison or not, it was quite tasty. She took another sip.

"A bit like sugar quills and fizzy water." She continued to drink and felt dismayed when only a drop fell on her tongue. Hermione started to feel very strange. _Oh no._ The only thing that came to mind to describe the sensation she felt was the shutting of a telescope. The table grew taller and the hallway took on cavernous proportions. Hermione waved her arms helplessly and tried to leap up and grab the steadily rising table ledge. She made a frustrated sound and clenched her tiny fists. _How could she be so stupid?_ Her eyes swelled with tears and she tried to stop them. She wished Harry and Ron were here. Hermione wiped her eyes and blinked in surprise at the hint of something behind the curtain in the corner. _Of course! _She strode under the table to the curtain where the dead end had been. Behind the curtain was a door fitted for her current size. Hermione smiled. It hadn't been a dead end after all. Surprised to find it unlocked, she opened the door.

"Oh my fur, and whiskers," Neville's squeak greeted her. He looked more like a rabbit than ever. She sighed in relief that she had finally caught up with him.

"Oh Neville, I'm glad I finally found you, I… …"

"WINKY! Where have you been?"

"Excuse me?" Did Neville just mistake her for a house elf? She felt a flush of anger followed by embarrassment. She opened her mouth to say more when Neville interrupted.

"She'll have me executed, if I waste anymore time. Winky, run to the house and fetch my gloves and fan. Hurry up, now. Quick! Quick!" He practically pushed her in the direction of a cottage, some distance away.

She looked behind her for the door to the hallway she had come from, but it had vanished. _This just gets weirder and weirder_. She trudged up to the cottage. It reminded her of Hagrid's hut, only larger. The familiarity warmed her a little. She remembered why she was there and felt the same flush of anger as before. She most certainly was not some slave to be ordered around, and neither was Winky for that matter. Who did Neville think he was? This wasn't like him at all. She refused to fetch his gloves, fan, or whatever else he wanted. Why did he need gloves and a fan, to begin with? Maybe there was something she could use in the cottage to find a way back to Hogwarts. It was now impossible to retrace her steps to the hallway due to it's mysterious disappearance. The thought made her head hurt. Inside the cottage, she snooped around looking for anything that might help her. She found a vanity table with a mirror, and several pairs of kid gloves arranged neatly in a row. A black bottle, similar to the one she saw in the hallway, caught her eye. There was no label on this one. However, Hermione wasted no time agonizing and drank from the bottle. She instantly started to grow.

"OW!" She cried when her head bumped the ceiling. Her elbow nudged something and it shattered. She tried to bend over and readjust her limbs, but she kept growing. She shifted herself so she rested on one elbow and had to stick her other arm out the window. Struggling to position her legs, she shoved one foot in the fireplace. Hermione drummed her fingers against the floorboards, creating tiny groans in the woodwork. She bit her lip, and tried to think of a solution.

"Winky! Where are my gloves? Didn't I say to hurry?" Neville called shrilly. Hermione groaned. If she survived this, Neville could do his own bloody potions from now on. She heard him scuttle to the door. It opened inward onto her elbow.

"Watch it!" She yelped. There was a dead pause. She heard a mumble that sounded a little like "window" and "bill." She wondered what he could be planning. She could hear a tiny grandfather clock ticking distantly. She wanted to find some way to make it stop. Something tingled on her arm outside the window. She felt something crawling on it. Hermione thrashed her arm wildly to get it off. She heard another crash and a squeal from outside.

"Try going through the chimney, Bill. You can probably get rid of it from there." Bill? There were scratching sounds on the outside and something tumbled down the chimney onto her leg. The creature coughed and Hermione tried to shake it from her leg until she noticed a patch of red hair through the soot. Her heart jumped.

"Bill Weasley!"

"How do you know my name?" He coughed and scampered with an odd reptilian grace into the room.

"It's me Hermione. You have to help me, Bill. I'm lost and I don't know what to do." She pleaded. He looked marginally sympathetic.

"That's sad. Well anywhere will take you there."

"Huh?"

"If you don't know where you are going, anywhere will take you there." He still showed no sign of recognition. "Truth is I'm here to exterminate you and I don't want Neville outside to get angry, so…"

"But…" Hermione began when Bill suddenly pelted her with a pebble, then another, and another. "Hey! Stop it." He kept on. Hermione covered her face from being hit but felt the blows become softer. The pebbles had turned into small cakes and despite the oddity Bill still threw them at her. She lowered her arms but brought them up again when one cake hit her square in the eye, quite smartly. "That hurts!"

"It's not working." Said Bill, dismayed. He crawled quickly out the window and began talking to Neville.

"We'll just have to burn the house." Neville sighed.

"You will do no such thing, Neville Longbottom!" Hermione did her best prefect voice. There was silence again. If she strained hard enough, she could hear them speaking in hushed tones.

"Commence the burning!" Someone shouted. Hermione reflected bitterly that it was probably Bill. In an act of spontaneity and unthinking, Hermione shoved one of the pebble cakes in her mouth. She sighed in relief when she started shrinking. As quickly and stealthily as she could, she slipped out of the cottage. She sneaked a peak at Neville the rabbit, hardly recognizable, and Bill, with his lizard-like attributes, as they stared, transfixed by the cottage they set aflame. They did not notice her at all, and Hermione decided that these animals could not be the people she knew.

She ran towards a thick forest, though for all she knew it could have just been a thicket. She was still very small after all. She sat down on the ground and hugged her knees. Bill hadn't recognized her and Neville was completely off his rocker. Everything she ate made her change sizes, and objects were never what they seemed. First thing she needed to do was reach a proportional size. Secondly, she would find a way out of here. Hermione stood up and let out a deep breath. She was always able to work more efficiently when she had a plan, a vague one, but a plan nonetheless. A twig snapped behind her. She turned around and looked right into a huge pair of yellow eyes.

"Mrs. Norris." She gulped. What the cat was doing in the forest at that particular moment became irrelevant when Hermione noted that Mrs. Norris was the size of Fluffy the three-headed dog in comparison to her. She was no better than an innocent mouse in this situation. Mrs. Norris gave her the same predatory look Hermione had seen Crookshanks give rodents right before he pounced on them. Mrs. Norris bent slowly back into a crouching position, and Hermione swore she saw the cat smirk. She quickly rolled to the side into a thorn bush as Mrs. Norris pounced onto the area where she had once been. The giant cat recovered quickly and tentatively sniffed the air. Hermione stood stock-still and tried not to think of the thorns poking her body. She could hear Mrs. Norris's rumbling purr as it neared the thorn booth. _Please, please, please. _The purring grew louder and she could see Mrs. Norris through the thorns, yellow eyes mechanically searching the area. The cat took one last look near Hermione's location and moved on. When she saw Mrs. Norris's scrawny tail disappear through some foliage, she breathed a sigh of relief. She remembered Harry speculating once that Mrs. Norris could see through invisibility cloaks. She, of course, told him it was nonsense but she could now see where his thoughts stemmed from.

Hermione set out in the opposite direction as Mrs. Norris and found herself surrounded by tall grass leaves and yellow flowers. A pleasant change from the thorn bush, she noted. She spotted a ring of tall mushrooms and instantly felt a sense of relief. She could climb on top of one and see some of the area around her and decide the best direction to go. She ran up to a slightly shorter mushroom and jumped up to grab the edge. With a great amount of effort, she was able to hoist a leg over and pull herself up. She caught her breath and coughed harshly when she accidentally breathed in a cloud of smoke. She looked at an adjacent mushroom for the source and completely regretted it. _Not this. Not now. _She whispered several expletives.

"Of all the people I have to see, why you?" She must be cursed. Hermione shook her head and blinked. No, he was still there. He even managed for his blue caterpillar body to trail behind him elegantly instead of grotesquely.

"Shouldn't I be asking," He drawled sleepily, "why _you_?" He followed the question by rudely blowing more hookah smoke into her face.

* * *

A/N- I think it's pretty obvious who the catepillar is. I thought he was the perfect choice. If there be punctuation or spelling errors, appy polly loggy, for I am my own editor. Review, por favor. 


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